The lifecycle of collecting & reporting your carbon emissions

– The growing materiality of carbon-related greenwashing (i.e., carbonwashing) justifies a new taxonomical framing.
– An increase in the quality and quantity of carbonwashing is prominent throughout the entire carbon data lifecycle. Net-zero announcements represent a strong contemporary case of carbonwashing.
– The majority of carbonwashing scenarios seem to be facilitated by the absence of mandatory reporting frameworks.

This 25-page working paper from Kim Schumacher and Soh Young In is valuable to learn how challenging it is for companies to assess their carbon footprint and then report out on it. The two graphics on pages 8-9 really help understand that process at a glance.

The paper is a little challenging to digest, with the academic tendency to constantly refer to other studies for support and paragraphs that could be broken into two (or five) – but I haven’t seen anything out there that outlines the carbon data collection & reporting process like this. Have you? There’s a table on page 16 that links instances of carbonwashing to specific materiality factors that’s worth considering….